Sights & Sounds
- The visuals are a little inconsistent. The background art is amazing and very interesting to look at with the angular crystals and shard-like architecture. The character and enemy designs are, in comparison, fairly simple-looking and generic
- The animation in this game is grim. It feels sluggish and looks awkward. You don't so much mantle ledges as you clumsily flop your way up them
- The score is probably the high point of this game. From the tinkling, austere keys in the game's main theme to the booming percussion of its boss themes, there's almost always something for your ears to latch onto, at least

Story & Vibes
- The overt narrative follows Ina, a magical priestess of some sort who finds herself waking up following an attack on the tower she's imprisoned in. You're trying to escape even though the tower itself is sorta opposed to that idea
- It appears to be a metaphorical, infer-your-own-meaning sort of tale about growth and awakening. There's even a dialogue option for you to choose what sort of figurative issue you're trying to run from. That decision unfortunately felt a little trite
- Overall, this game doesn't have a strong Identity or message. It couldn't even hone in on a central theme. When the game's answer take-home message is, "lol I dunno, what do YOU think I'm trying to say?", the whole experience feels cheap and wishy-washy

Playability & Replayability
- A weak story or bad vibes can usually be forgiven if a game has a fun gameplay loop, but Aspire: Ina's Tale doesn't get that quite right either. Don't get me wrong; the puzzles are competently designed and some were even quite clever. But it doesn't matter when the "platformer" half of the "puzzle platformer" nomen feels so awful to play
- Ina constantly feels like she's running underwater. Doing literally anything in this game feels sluggish and awful. I have no idea why she moves so slowly, but I constantly found myself grinding my Steam Deck's analog stick against the housing in an subconscious attempt to speed things up
- The sludgy movement becomes glaringly obvious when enduring chase sequences or completing puzzles requiring quick or precise timing. Things slow down even harder when you have to push blocks or wait for doors to open.
- I'm not going to be back for the achievements or collectibles. Seeing the credits roll was a bit of a relief

Overall Impressions & Performance
- Nice background art and a great soundtrack can't save this one. I've played very few platformers that made basic movement and environment navigation feel so awful
- Seeing as how the game is in no rush to get to where it's going, it won't tax your system too badly. It played well on the Steam Deck

Final Verdict
- 3.5/10. Even with perfectly snappy controls, this title would still feel a little generic. As it stands with the existing controls, calling the experience a chore would be charitable